Schumer had one question: Is Bernie coming?

[portlander23]

Chuck Schumer will be the most powerful Democrat in the land. But spend a few minutes with the incoming Senate minority leader and it’s clear where the real power lies
Dana Milbank
Washington Post

Schumer had one question: “Is Bernie coming?”

“He told me he’d come,” Schumer continued. “Hold on, I’ll call him right now.” The party leader had his aides track down Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the populist insurgent who nearly beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. “Hey, Bernie, so can you come?” Schumer asked. “We’ll do it at a time that’s good for you, okay? . . . Try to clear it. It’s a good event. . . . It’s right up your alley and you can help us by coming. . . . It complements what you’re doing. . . . We need you.”

But the interruption said much about how Schumer will lead Democrats in the age of Donald Trump. Schumer, though close to Wall Street for much of his career, is wholeheartedly embracing the party’s Sanders-Elizabeth Warren populism. This means Schumer, and the Democrats, are ready to fight.

If Democrats are to have any hope in 2018, they’ll need to reclaim the populism Trump stole in 2016. Schumer embraces this. “If you want to appeal to the manufacturing worker in Scranton, the college student in Los Angeles and the single mom making minimum wage in Harlem, one economic message will work,” he said. “We just didn’t have it” in 2016.

Yep.

On this part I disagree:

The incoming Democratic leader pledges to keep the focus almost entirely on the economy and to let his members vote as they wish when Republicans introduce social and energy issues that split Democrats. “We’re going to have five, six sharp-edged [policies] that can be described in five words,” Schumer said. “That economic message” — college affordability, infrastructure spending, taxing the rich — “unites our caucus.”

I'm not sure what he means by "social" and "energy" issues that "split" Democrats, but if there are any Democrats who aren't on board with environmental protection and social justice, they can get primaried.